


You’re the Center of Everything (For One Day a Year)

by viktorkrumn



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Don't copy to another site, M/M, Short One Shot, aziraphale decides crowley MUST have a birthday, crowley is renovating aziraphale's bookshop, inspired by a writing prompt, post armageddo-no, they're such a power couple i can't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 18:46:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20376355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viktorkrumn/pseuds/viktorkrumn
Summary: Aziraphale decides that he must find out what Crowley's birthday is, since the demon doesn't remember.





	You’re the Center of Everything (For One Day a Year)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by @promptsforthestrugglingauthor's prompt on tumblr:  
“Wait, you don’t remember your own birthday?”  
“I lost track of it a few centuries ago. Things got really blurry around the seventeenth century thanks to scarlet fever and I spent about half of the eighteenth sleeping to recover from it.”

Aziraphale slammed his glass of wine on the table. “Wait, you don’t remember your own birthday?”

“I lossst track of it a few centuries ago. Things got  _ really _ blurry around the seventeenth century thanks to ssscarlet fever and I spent about half of the eighteenth sleeping to recover from it.”

“Crowley, dear, that’s absolutely unacceptable! We must find you a birthday da — did you say you got  _ scarlet fever _ ? Good God, love, you’re a demon! You do know that you are immune to diseases, right?”

“Well, yes, yes, indeed I am, but, er — uhm, well, you see, it’s quite embarrassssing…” Crowley took another swig of his drink, as if he wasn’t slurring his words already. “I got cur — curis — curious… curious and I, uh, let my guard down, so to speak.”

“You were  _ curious _ about  _ scarlet fever _ so you  _ let your guard down _ and  _ got sick, on purpose _ ?!”

“Well, maybe not about scarlet fever specifically, but about, er, humans, humansss and everything that they feel. Don’t get so upset, darling. I made sure not to die.”

“You made sure not to — ” Aziraphale spluttered. “Oh, great, that makes the whole thing so much better!”

“Doesn’t it, rather?”

“I was being  _ sarcastic _ !”

One night, two hangovers, two hangover-curing miracles, and a nice breakfast at the café down the street later, Aziraphale suddenly remembered the beginning of their drunken conversation last night. He had asked Crowley when his birthday was - goodness knows why he hadn’t done that centuries ago - and discovered that the demon… well, the demon didn’t actually know. This was utterly unacceptable in Aziraphale’s opinion. “Darling!” He called to Crowley, who was in the other room. “Darling, are you sure you don’t remember your birthday?”

Crowley’s head peeked around the doorway, one arm spread back to hold himself against the wall. “Quite sure, yes. Why does it matter so much, anyway?”

“Well! You simply can’t go around with no birthday! It’s such a nice day, too. Everyone who loves you gets together, and celebrates, and… and you’re the center of everything, for one day a year. Everyone should have that feeling, it is quite warm and nice.”

“Well, I don’t care much. But if you want to, you can find me a birthday.” Crowley walked fully into the kitchen, where Aziraphale was making tea. He sauntered over to the counter and hugged his angel from behind. “I’m going to find that antique chair that you requested for your bookshop. I have an idea of where I might find it, but it could take most of the day.” Crowley planted a soft kiss on Aziraphale’s cheek. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“Marvelous, dear. Thank you very much.” As soon as Crowley was gone, Aziraphale set about clearing a space in the living room, abandoning his tea to slowly turn cold on the kitchen counter. After he had pushed all of the furniture against the walls (not that there was much furniture in the first place), he rummaged around in the kitchen drawers for some chalk, which of course he didn’t find. “Oh, bugger it, I am an angel, am I not?” Aziraphale miracled himself a piece of white chalk, and set about drawing a pentagram on the floor. 

Twenty minutes later, Aziraphale had an open line to Metatron, the Voice of God. “Hello, Aziraphale.”

“H-Hello, Metatron. I have a question that I thought perhaps you could answer - seeing as you are God’s voice, and God is almighty and all-knowing…”

“Yes, Aziraphlae?” Metatron sounded a bit exasperated.

“Well, do you happen to know when the demon Crowley was born?”

“I would imagine that he was reborn as a demon with all the others when they fell from Heaven.”

“Well, yes.” Aziraphale took a moment to consider this. “But, he is still the same entity as he was when he was an angel, is he not? So, I suppose what I want to know is, when was he created? As an angel, I mean.”

“Aziraphale.” The voice of the Voice of God was tinged with warning. “This doesn’t seem like a pressing matter. Assuming you have have no further questions, I would like to close the line.”

“I — alright, yes, no… no further questions.” Aziraphale was quite put-out. He was sure that this had been a brilliant idea.

“Aziraphale.” The angel looked back up at Metatron, who seemed to be feeling sorry for him, and therefore decided to share one last piece of wisdom. “I will remind you that all angels were created before the creation of such concepts as ‘time’ and ‘dates’.”

At this, Aziraphale blushed quite horribly. “Thank you, Metatron.” The beam of light between the floor and the sky disappeared quite similarly to an electronic screen turning off - the light faded slowly, and then there was nothing. The angel took a few moments to recover himself from his shame. “Oh, so stupid of me. Of course I should have remembered that all angels were created all together! And before - before dates, and months, and birthdays, and even  _ days _ . I  _ do _ know these things. Just a momentary lapse in memory. No, this was not at all what I meant to ask…”

Aziraphale’s second attempt to discover his demon’s birthday was a lot less methodical, and involved gathering every book that he could get his hands on (and a few that he couldn’t, and had to miracle down from a high shelf or from a dusty corner). This included everything from Crowley’s apartment; as many history books as he was allowed to borrow from three libraries; and everything he had salvaged from his bookshop (which, sadly, wasn’t much). Aziraphale plopped pile after pile of books on the living room floor and sat down in the middle of the mess, smudging his pentagram a little bit in the process.

Over the course of four hours, he scoured every single book for any mention of a “Crowley,” “serpentine demon,” “Anthony,” and sometimes even just plain old “wily enemy.” He read about poets, knights, and emperors. Some of the mentions were even of his very own Crowley, but none of them yielded much information, let alone a birthday date.

This disappointed Aziraphale greatly, for in the past he had found the solutions to all of his problems in his books. It also made him miss his bookshop terribly, since it was in reality more a private collection than a functioning shop. Taking all of this into consideration, it comes as no surprise that the angel was very quickly overcome with frustration and hopelessness. Flopping onto Crowley’s bed (and now his, he supposed, after all, he had slept here for over two weeks now), he closed his eyes. Unfortunately, inactivity did not bring him a shred of calmness, and instead he became full of restlessness; which, in turn, gave him an idea. His eyes practically snapped open and he sat up quickly, scrambling into the study and to the old rotary phone.

“Anathema?”

“Aziraphale, hi, how are you?”

“Anathema! Are you absolutely positive that you have every single one of Agnes’s prophecies memorized?”

“I — well, yes. You sound urgent, is everything all right?”

Aziraphale sounded positively giddy. “It might be. I need your help. Is there any prophecy - anything at all - that could be related to Crowley? Not anything leading up to Armageddon, I mean something more… personal. And earlier.”

“Um, nothing comes right off the bat… What are you looking for, specifically?”

“His birthday.”

“His  _ birthday _ ?”

“Yes. Can you think of anything, anything at all?”

“No, I’m sorry, none of them seem to match… Oh! Except maybe this:

‘The serpent on wheels shall be wrought;

And the angel shall search far and wide;

But the price be too high;

And this shall be June 24.’”

“Incredible… Absolutely incredible, hearing you recite prophecies like this, my dear.”

“So do you think that’s it? His birthday is June twenty-four?”

“Oh, no, absolutely not. That’s about when I toyed with the idea of buying an Alfa Romeo car when the company was first started. Eventually I decided to invest the money in expanding my bookshop.”

“An… Alfa Romeo.”

“Yes, you know, their logo is a snake.”

“I know what Alfa Romeo is, I just didn’t realize that you had a driver’s license.”

“I don’t. Thank you, goodbye!” Aziraphale put down the receiver, then looked around in dismay. Talking to Anathema always cheered him up, but he still didn’t have a solution to his problem.

“Hello, angel! Where are you? I found your chair, it’ll be delivered tomorrow!” Crowley was never too far through the doorway before he started recounting his daily adventures out loud, whether anyone besides the plants was there to listen or not.

“In the kitchen, dear!” Aziraphale was pulling a cake out of the oven. (He was wearing oven mitts, of course; ‘You know, Crowley, you can never be too careful about keeping up human appearances,’ ‘Angel, you’re  _ inside your own house _ , and you can’t get burned’).

“Oh, hello there.” Crowley was of course drawling, not having talked any other way since approximately the sixteenth century. “Something smells absolutely  _ delicious _ .”

“Fantastic! That’s your birthday cake. We’re of course celebrating very late, but that’s just to make up for missing it this year. We’ll celebrate properly next year.”

“Hmm.” Crowley opened a bottle of champagne and poured them each a glass. Sipping his and leaning against the kitchen counter, he miracled plates and silverware onto the table. “What is it?”

“January first.” Aziraphale was very obviously very proud of something, and waiting to be asked what it was.

“Is it now?” Crowley raised an eyebrow, and gave half a smirk. “Doesn’t sound familiar. How did you find it?”

“Well.” Aziraphale glanced between Crowley and the cake, looking pleased with himself. “I didn’t. I set the date, because you’re — you’re the beginning of my whole world.”

“Angel, that makes  _ no fucking sense _ .”

“What! Dear, you’re the beginning of my whole world, and January first is the beginning of the y — ”

Crowley shut Aziraphale up by kissing him. “It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Why am I your beginning?” He raised a finger before Aziraphlae could protest. “But, I love it. Thank you so much.” Crowley pressed his forehead against Aziraphale’s, taking a moment to stare into his angel’s eyes. “Now, let’s eat before it all goes cold.”

**Author's Note:**

> I had a lot of fun writing this! Please please please leave kudos/comments, they warm my heart <3


End file.
